San Jose begins planning for compliance with its new minimum wage

San Jose is slowly planning its compliance with November's Measure B, which raises the city's minimum wage from $8 to $10 per hour for commercial and nonprofit businesses within the city.

The increase will affect any employee working more than two hours a week for businesses in the city, businesses required to pay city business tax, businesses that are based in San Jose and those whose employees are working in the city even if the business is based outside city limits.

The measure was passed by 59.6 percent of San Jose voters. Late this month a committee began setting up a structure for compliance with the new wage, which goes into effect March 11.

City staff is notifying affected businesses using the finance department's business tax amnesty program and business tax renewal forms with updated information about the ordinance.

The information includes a fact sheet and the minimum wage ordinance email address--SJMO@sanjoseca.gov--for businesses and the public to ask questions. Staff plans to update the website with answers to frequently asked questions and concerns based on website, email and telephone inquiries.

That team will be led by the public work's office of equality assurance, which will enforce the measure on a complaint basis. The remaining team members come from the city manager's and city attorney's offices, the departments of finance and human resources and the office of economic development.

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Prior to implementation, city staff will conduct public outreach and education. Besides creating an official wage bulletin in January, developing ordinance highlights and a list of frequently asked questions, staff will prepare mailings to business owners using the tax amnesty program and its business tax program renewals.

The city's website will be updated frequently. Staff will provide information to employee and employer communities; offer materials to city council offices for newsletters; and put together scripts for public service radio announcements.

The group already has a dedicated phone line and email address and is developing employee questionnaires and declarations in support of claims, notices to employers of claims, notice of determination to employers, internal processes and administrative citations. It and a new minimum wage staff, likely to be set up in late February, will develop regulations as necessary.

Developing that staff will come slowly, according to David Vossbrink, the city's communications manager, starting with as few as two staff members and adjusting as necessary.

The city also has no budget for the staff, although early rough estimates, based on San Francisco's ordinance and adjusted to San Jose's businesses, expect it to run about $600,000, Vossbrink said. The exact figure is unknown. "We have to learn by doing," he said.

The ordinance staff hasn't been formally budgeted, he added, because it wasn't part of the budget process during the early months of this year. Instead, it will be determined in February when the city adjusts its mid-year budget for items and issues not planned earlier.

The staff will be based in the public works office under division manager Nina Grayson. Her team works on the city's living and prevailing wages as well as Americans With Disabilities compliance issues.

The staff plans to conduct outreach with employers throughout the community using chambers of commerce from San Jose and nearby cities, minority chambers, neighborhood business associations and specific business associations, including those serving restaurants, landscape contractors and building management industries.

The staff also will reach out to Work2future job training vendors, payroll service providers, local colleges and universities, high schools--including those with job placement centers or school publications--city council office newsletters, Spanish, Vietnamese and other Asian publications, radio, television, public service announcements, labor organizations and the media.